Alaska

[LongRanger]

I don’t know exactly when I first started thinking about it, but I can remember looking at this globe I had, one time --- not a big one, maybe 12-14 inches or so across --- looking for/finding the part of the world where I lived in, Southern California, then looking around, at the US, finding the places where I’d been, mostly in the West . . . small area.

I like to travel, go places, see stuff --- but I don’t think in terms of flying or sailing.

I drive.

'At’s how I grew up, in a car, my Grampa’s station wagon, going places.

And so, when I looked at that globe, seeing the handful of places where I’d been . . . made me think about all the other places where I hadn't, but where I still could, might . . . . . . in a car.

Mexico, Central America, then all the way South? . . . Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. At over 9000 miles (one-way), the longest drive I can make on this side of the planet. But. Uncertain roadage. And me no habla so bueno. Bucket-list item.

Florida and the Eastern Seaboard? OK, OK --- but kinda busy . . . and settled, not exactly Lewis-and-Clark kinda stuff. And, when you get right down to it --- just not that far away.

Up the coast --- Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia? Now we’re talking. Wild, stormy, remote. Don’t know any body who’s gone there . . . but now keep going . . .

Hudson’s Bay, then Nunavut . . . The Northwest Territories . . . The Yukon . . . .

Wow. Lotta geography, there. No towns --- or roads . . . just place-names. Keep going.

And then, way over yonder . . . . up to the North --- where America almost touches Asia . . . the highest mountains, biggest forests, 2nd largest watershed in North America . . . . open country, and barely a city or highway in between . . . .

No political instability, English-speaking, and only one international border.



Alaska.

Oh yeah . . . and one highway to get there.

‘OK. I’m goin’ . . . ‘





Rick